


Cheap Shot Coffee

by Vicki_88



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Coffee Shops, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-29
Updated: 2015-04-29
Packaged: 2018-03-26 09:38:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3846052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vicki_88/pseuds/Vicki_88
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock works in a cafe called Cheap Shot Coffee where instead of writing people's names on coffee cups they write insults.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cheap Shot Coffee

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by number three on this tumblr AU prompt http://jonahryan.tumblr.com/post/117050708072/aus-for-when-your-otp-are-both-assholes 
> 
> You can find me on tumblr as potterlockedpomme, I mostly blog about Sherlock, Inception and Harry Potter.

The Owl Case, as Sherlock had taken to referring to it in his head, was taking forever. He knew that as soon as he saw the murderer he’d be able to piece everything together, but the evidence had been so lacking all he’d been able to get was a coffee cup that he’d traced to an appallingly named café called Cheap Shot Coffee, whose twist on the usual coffee shop was instead of writing people’s names on the coffee cups they’d write insulting descriptions, such as ‘short bald guy with bad breath’ or ‘woman trying to look younger than she is’. If it hadn’t been for all the dull people he had to put up with – both the customers and the baristas – Sherlock would have thought it would’ve been his perfect undercover role. 

He failed to understand why telling a suspect from his last Yard case that she owned enough cats to ensure she would live alone forever was “rude” and “demanded an apology” according to Lestrade, yet writing ‘single woman who owns five cats’ on a coffee cup made people laugh. 

He was day seven into this horrid case that never seemed to end, and after the initial hopeful glance to see if each new customer was the murderer Sherlock had stopped paying much attention to the never ending line of people who turned up to both get coffee and be insulted. He’d quickly learned the balance between what Brendan the Manager had called a Fun Insult and a Mean Insult. Writing ‘Man who lives in a barn with erectile dysfunction’ was apparently a Mean Insult, but ‘Man who lives in a barn and hasn’t had a date in a year’ was a Fun Insult. 

So when a short man who had recently returned home from Afghanistan or Iraq with an obviously psychosomatic limp and a medical background ordered a coffee he wrote ‘Army doctor with a fake limp’. 

“Excuse me?” 

Sherlock paused, mid-insult on a new cup and turned towards the voice. It was the Army doctor. Sherlock braced himself a little. Most people took their insults in stride knowing the gimmick of the café but a few people got angry and in seven days Sherlock had received his fair share of “piss off” and “I’m reporting you to your manager”.

“Yes?” Sherlock asked.

“My limp isn’t fake.” The man simply replied.

“Your limp’s really bad when you walk but your hand eases pressure off the cane when you stand like you’ve forgotten about it so it’s at least partly psychosomatic.”

The man’s hand clenches around the top of his cane but he doesn’t appear to be angry. 

“And how did you know I was an Army doctor?” He asks instead. 

“Your face is tanned but no tan above the wrists. You’ve been abroad, but not sunbathing, and returned with clearly a psychosomatic limp. That says the original circumstances of the injury were traumatic then. So, wounded in action then.”

“And that I was a doctor?”

“I overheard you on the phone asking to have someone’s CT scan ready when you got back. And that’s not cheating, that’s listening.” 

“That…was amazing.”

Sherlock blinks. “Do you think so?”

“Of course it was. It was extraordinary; quite extraordinary.”

“Oh.” Sherlock’s never had this reaction before so he doesn’t quite know what to say. 

“My name’s John by the way,” the man says, holding his hand out. “John Watson.”

“The name’s -” Sherlock begins before stopping, spotting a large man in a dark blue jumper enter the coffee shop shifting his eyes nervously. “Excuse me”, Sherlock manages before leaping over the counter, pushing his mobile into John Watson’s hands, tackling the man in the blue jumper to the floor and shouting over his shoulder “call Lestrade, tell him Sherlock Holmes has caught the Owl Case Murderer!”. 

John Watson blinks at him for a moment in shock, but quickly nods and begins fumbling with the phone keys.  
Sherlock looks round at him again and says, “by the way, are you looking for a flatmate?”

**Author's Note:**

> The deduction dialogue when they first meet is (obviously) taken almost verbatim from A Study in Pink.


End file.
